The Whispers of Biology

  Not long ago, someone asked me: “Working in a company might be repetitive — not as daring or unpredictable as academic research. Would you still be interested?” Then I came across the story of the Nobel laureates who discovered G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) — Drs. Brian Kobilka and Robert Lefkowitz — and my perspective completely shifted.

  I had to analyze data from 96- or 384-well plates — each exported as a CSV file with thousands of rows. Sounds familiar? Yes! 96 or 384 wells — the well plates from the wet lab. My data came from 2D cell culture imaging, where I had to analyze single-cell information. I opened each file, searched for specific values, and repeated the same thing again and again. What I faced were: - Finger pain 😂 - Human weakness → human error after half a day of doing this - Forgetting to save → all work gone - Changing cut-offs → meant redoing everything from the start (and you know how often supervisors change them!) I realized all of this was just repetition. I knew every step — I just had to do it again for every well (or many plates). So I told my supervisor I wanted to use coding/programming to automate it. His answer? No. He wanted me to do it manually — “by eyes” — to get results faster. But I believed I could do more. So I decided to learn coding (R) secretly. I didn’t tell him — I ...

  Let’s break it down scene by scene so it’s easy to follow. Ready? Let’s roll! 🎬 🎬 Scene 1: The War Inside the Body Inside our body lives a massive army of dinosaur soldiers —our immune system— guarding the city of “Bodyville” from enemies like viruses, bacteria, and cancer cells. They’re always ready for battle— but here’s the catch… sometimes, these dino-soldiers go berserk! 😱 They start firing at everything in sight— even innocent citizens like the liver, eyes, or skin. And that’s how autoimmune diseases begin— when your body’s own army can’t tell friend from foe. 🦕 Scene 2: Enter the Boss – T-Rex the Peacemaker In 2025 , the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 🏅 was awarded to Mary Brunkow , Fred Ramsdell , and Shimon Sakaguchi for discovering the Regulatory T cell (Treg) — the real-life T-Rex boss of the immune army! 🦖 Yes, this T-Rex doesn’t roar to fight — it roars to calm the troops down . 🧠 Scene 3: The Birth of the T-Reg Unit Tregs are t...

    🔥 When the “Hashira of Demon Slayer” face off against “Cancer Demons”… What real-world treatments do they represent? ✨ Hashira × Cancer-killing strategies 🌊 Giyu – Water → Chemotherapy 👉 Wide-flow attack across the battlefield, wiping out many enemies but sometimes hitting teammates too (side effects). 🔥 Rengoku – Flame → Radiotherapy 👉 Burns a precise target, breaking DNA apart — best for “pinpoint strikes.” 🦋 Shinobu – Insect → Targeted Therapy / Monoclonal Antibody 👉 Sharp, needle-like poison aiming at “molecular weak points” (e.g., HER2, EGFR). Example: Trastuzumab (HERDARA) locks onto HER2 and blocks growth signals. 🌫️ Tokito – Mist → Nanomedicine / Drug Delivery 👉 Tiny particles sneak through defenses, carrying drugs to unlock destruction at the target. 💥🎶 Uzui – Sound → Surgery 👉 Timed, explosive precision — removing the “big boss” tumor straight from the field. 🐍 Obanai – Serpent → Immunotherapy (Checkpoint Inhibitors / ADCC) 👉 Releases...

 R.I.P. Prof. David Baltimore Nobel Laureate in Physiology/Medicine (1975) — discoverer of the enzyme Reverse Transcriptase (RT) in 1970, at just 37 years old. This enzyme has been in every high-school biology textbook, yet many of us forget how revolutionary its discovery was. It changed the way we understand life, disease, and treatment. At that time, the Central Dogma was simple: DNA → RNA → Protein. But RT overturned the dogma: RNA → DNA. A paradigm shift. Baltimore’s experiment explained how viruses could integrate their genetic material into the host DNA. Later, this became central to our understanding of HIV, cancer biology, and the development of therapies. His discovery also sparked the golden era of viral oncogenes — genes like src and myc carried by viruses that could integrate into human DNA and trigger cancer. I was fortunate to join a seminar earlier this year where Prof. Baltimore gave a keynote talk at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (Cancer Genetics: History & Co...

 💊 The Infinity Cancer Drug Factory 🏯✨   Pharmacy students don’t just learn about medicines — we also have to design factory layouts … even though most of us can’t use AutoCAD properly 😂 Designing a pharmaceutical plant layout is never simple. 🏭 For a regular drug factory , you already need a complex flow to separate cleanroom grades and prevent contamination. ⚠️ For chemotherapy drugs (cytotoxic) , the complexity increases — you must protect workers and contain hazardous substances. 🧬 For biologics , you add another layer: biosafety . It becomes so complicated that it feels like Infinity Castle from Demon Slayer — you can enter, but finding the way out is impossible 😅. 💡 Back in pharmacy school, we had to design plant layouts too: Some friends got simple factories (like paracetamol) → easy task 😌 My group drew a chemotherapy factory → endless books and regulations 📚 My close friend got a vaccine factory → even harder, with design + legal compliance ...

🐧 Penguin → the Linux mascot. Unix command line is like a rare language. I chose to learn it after Prof. Xiaole Shirley Liu taught me in STAT115, and with Tommy’s encouragement. Many said: “Just use no-coding tools, it’s easier.” Yes, that’s possible — but in the long run, harder paths build stronger skills. Today, I’m grateful I took that way. ❤️ Iron Man armor → transformation is never easy. Like Iron Man, the process is tough, but it makes you stronger — a scientist’s version of becoming a superhero. 🧪💻 Hybrid identity → test tube in one hand, laptop in the other. This penguin represents my journey as a hybrid wet–dry lab researcher. ⸻ 💡 Transformation is hard, but that’s what makes it powerful. You can do it too — keep going! 🚀 ⸻ Build a greater science together with me! 🌸 Thai language: NO CANCER FB page / Blogger https://lnkd.in/gQa3apBc 🧬 English language: The Whispers of Biology (LinkedIn / Blogger) https://lnkd.in/gRTnrpRz ⸻ #TheWhispersOfBiology #HybridResearcher #Data...

 How to remember commands/code? Easy: just type it 100 times yourself (when you actually need to use it),   INSTEAD OF copy-pasting. 😂   Old days: read docs → adapt → remember.   Now: LLMs prep everything → brain remembers nothing (not even a simple line of code 🤯) ========== Build a greater science together with me! Here is my blogs 🌸 Thai language: NO CANCER FB page/Blogger (https://lnkd.in/gQa3apBc or https://lnkd.in/gTqDK8MA) 🧬 English language: The Whispers of Biology (LinkedIn/Blogger) (https://lnkd.in/gRTnrpRz or https://lnkd.in/gRe_VtUF) #CodeLife #DevLife #ProgrammerHumor #LLM #FutureOfCoding #KeepLearning

 เราคิดถึงคุณดิกกกก (อ่านชื่อแล้วคิดดีไม่ได้เลย) We miss youuuu Dickkkk! (Okay… reading that name in English, you just can’t think innocent thoughts 😂) At first glance, I thought “wait…what??” Because in slang, Dick = little Pikachu ⚡️ But then Dr. Bunchar  Tanaboonsombat kindly explained with a photo… Ohhh right, it’s the nickname for Richard !   So who was the mysterious Richard that got such a bold love confession on top of our university library building? ❤ None other than the extraordinary Richard Feynman ❤ Nobel Prize–winning physicist, and one of the most beloved science teachers of all time. His students loved him so much that even 30 years after his passing, they hung this tribute up high on campus.  And honestly, if you’ve ever read or listened to Feynman, you’d get it—he wasn’t just brilliant, he was hilarious. You can check out Dr. Buncha’s podcast (super fun storytelling, even featuring Maxwell recently!). 💡 Now, how does a biologist like me...

From Cell Line🧫 to Command Line💻  & The Most Headachest person🤫 Me as… 🧫 Wet lab = Headache 💻 Dry lab = more Headache 🧫🧬💻 Hybrid Wet-Dry = The most Headache 🤯 Anyone else feel like a human ping-pong ball between the wet lab and dry lab? 😅 I made the leap from bench work to bioinformatics hoping to be the ultimate translator... turns out, sometimes I'm just fluent in headache (on both sides! 😂). Seriously though, open and early communication between our wet lab wizards and dry lab dynamos is KEY! Instead of waiting for the data to land, let's chat before experiments, during analysis, and really understand each other's world. It's a two-way street, folks! Bridging this gap isn't just about fewer headaches for us hybrids; it's about getting the absolute BEST out of our amazing skills and resources on both sides. Let's talk more, collaborate better, and make some awesome discoveries together! 🚀 For everyone who transform from wet to...

 "Vibe Coding: When everything in coding is thrown to AI." 🤖  That was the real eye-opener from yesterday's Sunday AI Webinar, where I got to hear from some super smart folks in AI, economics, and medicine. What's Vibe Coding? 🤔 Basically, it's when you just tell AI to write your code or fix your errors. You know, like, just copy-pasting the error message and letting the AI do its thing. At first, it's awesome! Super fast, seems like a shortcut. But then, as one of the speakers, Dr. Piyalitt Ittichaiwong , pointed out,  you can end up feeling super bummed out.  Why? 'Cause you hit a bug and get stuck in this endless loop you can't get out of. And for real, that's exactly what happens! 😵‍💫 I'm not even a proper coder myself – I actually studied pharmacy!  My first coding attempts were pretty messy, and I totally hit that "build it, break it, repeat" cycle. That's when I realized I needed to go back to square one. Why Fundamenta...

Rubbing shoulders with a Nobel laureate once,  and I've been hooked ever since!  It was with Prof. Ada, the Nobel laureate in Chemistry for her groundbreaking work on the structure and function of ribosomes. 🔬 I was fresh out of my Medicinal Chemistry course, and during a conference, I got to listen to her speak. That's when it all clicked! I could clearly visualize how a drug slips into a specific pocket of a protein to disable a bacterial cell. 🦠 It made the connection between what I learned in class and its real-world application crystal clear. Prof. Ada presented it with a beautiful animation, making the complex science so tangible. I was so inspired that I went straight back to my university and bothered my professor to tell him just how mind-blowing it all was. This experience truly brought my education to life. 🤯 (P.S. I've listened to Prof. Ada speak many times since, and one thing that never changes is the age of her granddaughter—she's always ...

  🚀 Streamlining RStudio Server with Docker Compose! 🚀 Are you painful with Rstudio “can’t install library”, “use in different computer”, “different R version”, etc. From problem I faced, after solving I share! Remember my previous post about running RStudio Server in Docker?  I have used very long command. I've found an even more efficient way! 🤩 Instead of wrestling with a lengthy docker run command below every times! sudo docker run \ -v /home/namthip:/home/rstudio/namthip \ -v /home/namthip/R/host-site-library:/usr/local/lib/R/host-site-library \ -e R_LIBS_USER=/home/namthip/R/host-site-library \ -e PASSWORD= \ -p 8787:8787 \ bioconductor/bioconductor_docker:RELEASE_3_15 ✅ Step 1: Create your `docker-compose.yml file`   However, before that easy step, we have to prepare docker-compose.yml file first. Use information below, save, and named it exactly this docker-compose.yml file.  version: "3.8" services: rstudio: image: bioc...

The most ridiculous, wild, and awesome academic conference ever! 🤪😂 LOL Just look at the hashtag they used:  #TheConferenceToEndAllConferences    💥. "The conference to end all conferences" - how cool is that?! 🤩 (You should also check out the other hashtag on X/BlueSky:  #TCTeAC ). The real name of the event is  Woodstock.Bio 2 + Night Science I was following Prof. Rechavi and Prof. Yanai's X accounts, and the hashtag says "conference," but the pictures… people on stage playing guitars? 🎸 Is this a concert or what? 🤯 They were even putting up posters in the middle of the forest! 🌲 It's just so damn cool. 😎  Even  Nature Career   just wrote an article about it! 📰 (But you can find all the sick photos by following the hashtags on X). This event brought together all kinds of disciplines, from biology all the way to physics 🔬⚛️, and included everyone from PhD students to professors. 👩‍🎓👨‍🏫  

Fight Against Cancer This image is an old one, from 1932.   It's truly an epic depiction of humanity's fight against cancer. A red warrior holding a sword and shield confronts a mass of black tentacles (cancer). This powerful image symbolizes the fight against cancer.  Besides being the cover of the Cancer Genetics: History & Consequence conference, this image was also used in the journal Science Translational Medicine back in 2011.  The article in that Science journal issue was "Integrating Cancer Control into Global Health." It discussed the role of the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) in addressing the increasing cancer burden in developing countries (including Thailand), emphasizing the importance of research, collaboration, and other things. The long-standing global cancer saga – how will it be studied going forward?  Art Information: Title: Original Vintage Poster Fight Against Cancer Publisher: France (1932) Illustrator: Marc Saint-Saens   #ม...